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•he h"1 an^ art’ sc'ence’ or discipline, jr '"story of the law of war ranges frj11 lhe sublime to the ridiculous and „ it the momentous to the trivial.
Ij1116 examples of the latter:
anyone here know semaphore?
0|)ause of the law-of-war prohibition |)0Cr^Ptographic equipment on board ships, the British fleet in the ^ jands/Malvinas Conflict could com- 1Cate with its hospital ships some
ttissi the
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hit c°aple: The first Swiss recipi- °f the Nobel Peace Prize was the
CASTLE HILL PRODUCTIONS
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erUent, Jean Henri Dunant, who
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ed the first award with a French- 'n 1901. The first U. S. recipient ar> individual not noted for his
lcpable tendencies—Theodore Roo-
’heV’ ^onored for his part in ending I (i *"sso-Japanese War.
(j „v Just a good German soldier:
Crim.- Prosecutors of World War II war L, lnals time and again faced the al- of . defense of superior orders (lack lm'na* 'ntent because the defendant rj0r0n|y obeying the orders of a supe- ^hi ?^'cer)> the principal authority for W • Was an incorrect statement of the ,ln the 1940 U. S. War Department
& Field Manual 27-10, Rules of Carfare '
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|Q^S; German Grand Admiral Karl blur Itz s principal witness against a irig '""erg war crimes charge of wag- tj ""restricted submarine warfare was Admiral of the Fleet Chester W. Ptact•Z’ wb° 8ave evidence of the same AfQn,1Ce by the Allied navies. tieVasJnhumanity to man: At the Ge et)C|
Conventional Weapons Confer-
1,1 1978, Sweden came out lan(,®y against the use of “inhumane” do """cs, constructed of materials that refe1 show up in X-rays (with pointed ^(1 f.nCe to the U. S. Claymore).
Uty ,L*Ced Swedes were later reminded CU "e,r own weapons inventory in- ^ 'he FFV-013 antipersonnel itiin ’ a ruirror image of the Claymore thjt ,l, °Used in a plastic casing, and tpineney also had an antipersonnel Aiiy.,c°nstructed of concrete and glass. arn,ser claim by Sweden (a major rifle exP°rter) was that the U. S. M-16 becr°Ur,d was an “inhumane” bullet ble j^Sc of its alleged tendency to tum- The ""dair and break up on impact, tailg,^covered in 1985 that their so- humanitarian bullet,” the
Perhaps Breaker Morant (played by Edward Woodward, left, in the 1985 film) was guilty as convicted.
5.56-caliber NATO SS-109 round, in fact tumbled more and broke up more easily than the U. S. round.
Isn’t the booby a retarded bird? At the same conference, the British endeavored to outlaw all booby traps, thinking that this might bar their use by the Irish Republican Army (which was legally incompetent to become a signatory to the convention, and ethically unlikely to observe it). The British effort was opposed by the Vietnamese, who wished to continue using their punji sticks.
Hey, are those Indians allowed to light their arrows? The Second Lateran Council in 1139 outlawed the crossbow as “unchristian.” The real objection seems to have been that a common foot soldier with a crossbow could knock an armor-clad knight off his horse at 100 paces. Considering that the weapon first appeared in China around 200 BC, it was surely unchristian, but its abolition proved about as effective as history’s other disarmament measures.
And this time we really mean it! All the major powers that went to war in 1940-41 had, 12 years earlier, signed a solemn treaty outlawing war (the Kellogg-Briand Pact of 27 August 1928). The treaty is still technically in force.
It doesn’t always pay to advertise: A common (and illegal) exhortation found on military tee-shirts and wall plaques to the effect of “Kill ’em all and let God sort ’em out!” traces back to the cry of “Tuez-les tous! Dieu reconnaitra les siens!” (“Kill them all! God will know His own!”) attributed to Papal Legate Arnold Almaric at the siege of Beziers during the 1209 crusade in southern France against the Albigensian heretics. The besieging commander had inquired how his soldiers should distinguish between heretics and orthodox believers.
An eye for an eye: Probably the largest compilation of war crimes, after the reports of the Nuremberg proceedings, is to be found in the Old Testament. When David removed Goliath’s head, he was either killing a prisoner of war or mutilating a corpse, both war crimes.
Out of uniform? Following the Second Boer War, Lieutenant Harry Harbord “Breaker” Morant, Bushveldt Car
bineers, was convicted by a British court-martial of murdering a Boer prisoner of war and was executed by firing squad. His defense was that he had tried and executed the Boer prisoner for illegally wearing a British uniform, specifically the jacket of Morant’s dead commander and friend, Captain Hunt.
A semifictional book and an awardwinning film sympathetically portrayed Morant as a scapegoat to British imperial politics. Recently discovered evidence (a contemporaneous letter signed by 61 of his men) reveals that Morant was himself wearing Captain Hunt’s jacket when he ordered the Boer prisoner shot. A letter from his codefendant, Lieutenant George Witton, to their mutual lawyer, discovered in the 1940s, also reveals that Morant admitted murdering a German missionary, a charge of which he was acquitted at the court-martial.
April Fool! The U. S. submarine Queenftsh (SS-393) mistakenly sank the Awa Maru, a converted Japanese cruise liner, in the Formosa Strait in an impenetrable fog during World War II (on 1 April 1945). The United States had guaranteed the ship immunity because the Japanese claimed she was carrying relief supplies to Indochina for Allied prisoners of war. The Queenftsh commander failed to read the warning radio message in time because it was sent in the clear (uncoded) and was therefore given a low reading priority. The United States had agreed to the Awa Maru's safe passage despite the certainty that Japan would also use the ship to carry cargo forbidden by the agreement—which in fact she did. The United States paid damages settling the Japanese claim for reparations in 1949. A day that will live in infamy! The guilty verdict of the U. S. military commission that tried Japanese General Tomoyuki Yamashita (“the Tiger of Malaya”) for war crimes in the Philippines was returned on 7 December 1945. General Yamashita’s appeal of his death sentence to the U. S. Supreme Court produced one of the bitterest dissents (by Associate Justice Frank Murphy) in the annals of the Court. Yamashita’s trial took place in Manila in the ballroom of the residence of the U. S. High Commissioner to the Philippines. Ten years earlier, the U. S. High Commissioner to the Philippines had been Frank Murphy.
Colonel James H. Jeffries III, U. S. Marine Corps Reserve
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